Uploading firmware during mass manufacturing

[Dhiraj]

Hello Everyone,

This query regarding programming of board during mass manufacturing. I am using nrf51822, S130, SDK11. I combined softdevice, bootloader, and application code in one hex file and tried to upload the hex file. It takes roughly 23 second to upload this hex file using nrfgostudio windows application. Consider that I have to upload the firmware in 3000pcs of PCBA, it will consume a lot of time during manufacturing of product. I want to know is there any faster method or any other software which can be used to erase the chip and upload new hex file quickly?

[endnode]

23 seconds sounds slow, are you sure you measure it right? This can be if you do complete chip recovery and erase but in production you may assume chips are erased already. Try running it through nrfjprog command line utility (basically no one is using GUI based things like nRFgo Studio in production), with many SEGGER programmers you can run at 10-50MHz SWD clock rate which should also help. Finally doing 3k boards in production jig you will probably use some professional HW + SW flashin bundle so I suggest to test that instead of other tools.

[Nguyen Hoan Hoang]

You can use the IDAP-Link to parallel program your boards. It does not require you to mergehex. Just give it the 3 hex files. It will handle the merging automatically.

[Dhiraj]

I using nrfjprog using command prompt. It programmed the nrf51822 quickly (~3- 4 sec)

[Dhiraj]

Thanks Nguyen Hoan Hoang, I will have a look at it.